Between battles and story chapters, you can upgrade character levels in the training grounds by spending gold, choose talents for your heroes, and forge powerful crests and weapons with materials gathered during battles.

If you find your heroes simply aren't strong enough to tackle the next battle or chapter, you'll always have to opportunity to go back and grind old battles for new crafting materials, experience, and special items. This is a nice touch that helps players feel their heroes getting stronger, especially when you get to go back to an old battle completely overpowered and just demolish everything.

The fast paced action is the heart of the game, and you won't be at a loss for things to swing your weapon at. Virtual armies of enemies fill each and every map to the brim. Each hero has their own set of special moves that can be used, oftentimes with over the top animations such as a powerful weapon swing sending dozens of enemies flying in different directions, along with special effect such as bursts of light and wind trails behind each strike. Chaining attacks together in vicious combos look and feel great, with each hit feeling like it connects.

The game uses a rock paper scissors type combat system called the "weapon triangle" in which certain weapons are strong and weak against other weapon types. Swords beat axes, axes beat spears, and spears beat swords. This adds an interesting layer to combat where you'll want to make sure you're using the right weapon against the right enemy for maximum damage.

If one of your characters die, they may be potentially gone for good as raising them from the dead requires a large amount of rare reagents. While you may be able to resurrect a fallen hero from time to time, you won't be able to continually bring them back if you let them die constantly. This encourages strategic play by keeping an eye on the entire battlefield, as opposed to just mashing buttons and cutting through ranks of enemies. Nobody wants to see their favorite hero die, so this adds a sense of panicked excitement to the action.

History mode is a fast-paced and exciting mode where you tackle a map (based on classic events from previous Fire Emblem games) with various challenges requiring a certain number of enemies to be killed, or the map to be cleared in a specific time frame. Some of the most tense moments are to be had in this mode due to these battle requirements which aren't present in the regular story mode, and it will really put your skills to the test. By completing these challenges, new weapons and characters are unlocked, making it a rather rewarding experience and a great way to keep the gameplay going after the main story mode is completed.

Over 20 of the more popular and well-loved characters from the Fire Emblem franchise appear in this game, including Rowan, Caeda, Lyn, Chrom, and more. It's a treat to see most of the characters from all the Fire Emblem games all together in one place, teaming up with one another when they otherwise wouldn't in other games.